


for the world is hollow and I have touched the sky

by whitchry9



Series: The Lost Son of Krypton and The Found Son of Hell's Kitchen [3]
Category: DC Cinematic Universe, DCU, Daredevil (TV), Man of Steel (2013)
Genre: AU, Blind Character, Brothers, Flying, Gen, Growing Up, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 12:21:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9548825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitchry9/pseuds/whitchry9
Summary: Matt is fifteen when Clark first takes him flying.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, you know how long I've been waiting to use this title? Pretty much forever. I love it. So. I wrote a thing for it.

When Matt is thirteen years old, his brother Clark yells from above him to go get their mother, because something is going very wrong.

 

Matt can't see what's going wrong, obviously, but he hears Clark above him, clinging to a tree branch, when seconds ago he was standing next to Matt teasing him about his hair.

 

Matt doesn't hesitate, just takes off running for the house, his cane barely warning him before he smashes into the porch steps.

“Ma! Clark needs help!” He takes her by the hand as soon as he can find her and drags her into the yard where Clark is still above their heads.

“Clark!” she yells. “What are you doing?”

“I don't know how to get down,” Clark pleads.

Matt doesn't know why, if he got up there, he should be able to climb down.

 

It soon becomes clear that Clark didn't climb, he floated.

 

Matt's brother could fly.

Of course he could.

 

Clark wears ankle weights for the next month until they're sure he won't accidentally start floating away again. He practices his control in the barn, getting things for their dad from the barn loft and floating back down to the ground level.

 

Matt works on differentiating different tools without touching them, his father holding them up so Matt could feel the air flow around them and trace their shape out in his mind.

They both get good at their own things.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Matt is fifteen when Clark first takes him flying. Matt thinks he could have done it before, but Clark was worried about dropping him or something, not like he said, but Matt knows. Clark likes being an older brother, even if it's only by a few months, and the best way to be an older brother is to be overly protective.

Matt kinds of wishes he was older. Maybe he is, since they don't actually know how old Clark is. Because he's an alien and everything.

(That was a fun conversation they had as a family.)

 

“You sure you want to do this?” Clark asks. It's at least the seventh time.

“Yes,” Matt tells him, for what is also at least the seventh time.

He has to jump a little to get his arms around his brother's neck, and he wraps his legs around Clark's torso so he doesn't fall off. It's not that he doesn't trust his brother, because he does, but Matt just wants to prepare for the worst, just in case.

He's pragmatic like that.

 

Clark takes off slowly, not shooting up in the air like he's done before. Matt has heard him do it, time and time again. Pa had to give him a talking to about going Mach 1 and over, because it kept scaring the chickens.

 

It doesn't take long before Matt can't sense anything around them, no trees, no houses, no ground. There is nothing but his brother and the wide open sky. He can only imagine how it looks.

Clark whoops and goes faster; Matt clings tighter.

He's never not had something to guide him, there has always been _something._ Even in Kansas, land of wide open spaces and fields, there is always still the ground.

But up here, there is nothing.

 

It's disorienting and he almost feels sick, but he doesn't want to stop, because there is nothing else like this, nothing that compares. He is completely and utterly free, nothing keeping him tied down, and he realizes how Clark must have felt that day he was clinging to the tree in the yard, the only thing keeping him from flying off was the strength of his grip.

That's all Matt has now.

He thinks if he did let go, if he slipped, that Clark would catch him. He's not sure he wants to try it though.

 

Clark slows, and then Matt can feel the ground growing nearer. There are no trees or anything else, so it must be a field, somewhere away from home.

Clark lands, and Matt lets go reluctantly, his legs uncertain about how to work again after having ignored the laws of gravity. He's not sure why they stopped. Surely Clark wasn't tired?

 

“The sun's setting,” Clark says by way of explanation. “I just wanted to stop to take a look at it.”

Matt's still lost for words.

“It's beautiful,” Clark continues. “Like sherbet that's melting, with oranges and pinks and yellows and a little bit of purple.”

Matt feels the low rays hitting him, the warmth not unwelcome on what could otherwise be a cool night. “You know,” he says, remembering something that he read in a book once. “We could watch the sunset as many times in a day as we wanted. We'd just have to keep flying.”

“Yeah,” Clark realizes. He smiles. “That would be cool.”

“Maybe later though,” Matt adds. “Another day, so they don't get worried and think we flew off to save the world or something.”

Clark laughs. “Yeah, Ma definitely would think that.”

“'Martha, calm down, I'm sure they'll come back',” Matt mimes in a perfect imitation of Jonathan, always the level headed one in a situation.

Clark beams.

They stand in silence for a few minutes more. Matt traces the sun's journey by the warmth of the rays on his body.

 

“Oh, there it dipped below the horizon. I suppose we'd better get back,” Clark says reluctantly.

Matt hops back up on his brother's back, clinging a little less tightly this time, looking forward to the moment when there would only be his brother and the sky, and nothing else.

 


End file.
